A Blank Dictionary
by mostlypsychotic
Summary: Another re-working of the Riddler's Arkham City interview tapes. The Riddler assumes he has the upper hand from the moment he appears in Strange's office.
1. Chapter 1

Mayor Quincy Sharp was nothing more than a simpleton, Hugo Strange knew that much. If he wasn't absolutely necessary to his plan, the psychiatrist would have him thrown into Arkham City in an instant. As a matter of fact, he thought with a slight smirk, he probably would do just that one of these days. But for now, he had to listen to the fool blubber at him over the phone. It was exhausting.

"Do not fret, Mr. Mayor," he said, trying to hide his irritation with a soothing voice. "Everything is under control, I promise you."

"It's not that I don't trust you, Hugo." Sharp's voice was crackly with static, but his worry was clear through it all. "It's just...it's just that the headaches, the pain...they come all the time now." Hugo rolled his eyes, shaking his head. If the mayor really thought that the medication he had prescribed would help with the _headaches_, of all things...

"Continue to take the medication," he ordered. There was hardly anything stopping him from simply ending the conversation. Except the person on the other end, of course.

"But-"

"It is _late_, Mr. Mayor," Strange continued, clenching his free hand into a fist on the desk. "You are tired. You need your sleep." The mayor exhaled loudly, the idea planted in his head just as easily as ever.

"...Of course. I need my sleep," he agreed.

"You will hang up now."

"I will hang up now-"

Strange slammed the phone down before he lost his patience with Sharp at long last. It wouldn't be good for his image to start yelling at the poor fool, after all. Leaning forward, he rubbed his temples and closed his eyes.

"Imbecile," he grumbled. Up until now, he hadn't even noticed the new light behind him until it emitted a voice.

"I couldn't have put it better myself."

Strange whirled around in his chair to find a beaming man in a green jacket standing behind him, oddly relaxed and most definitely uninvited. He stood up, knocking his chair over in the process, and glared down at him.

"What? How dare you enter my office!" he said loudly, ready to summon his guards. Before he could pass this unwanted visitor by, he spoke up again, his face feigning confusion.

"Oh, I'm not in your office." As if on cue, the man flickered a little, and Strange realized instantly. A hologram. He didn't care to admit it, but he had no idea how he had managed to get a hologram to display in a room with no projector. "And please," the visitor continued, turning a little and revealing the bright yellow question mark on the side of his jacket, "don't insult me by attempting to _trace _this broadcast. You will fail."

"I take it I am talking to mister Edward Nigma?" Strange asked through gritted teeth, taking a seat again. The hologram chuckled, moving forward a few steps and coming to rest beside the desk.

"Do you know of any other inmate in your twisted little penitentiary who is _ingenious _enough to arrange this little chat?" he asked, adjusting his hat a little. Strange raised an eyebrow, leveling the Riddler with a cool stare.

"Narcissism," he replied, as if that one word was enough to explain everything. "A compulsive desire to prove his intellect," he went on, before gesturing at the question-mark-adorned jacket, "and a predilection for riddles." The Riddler smiled sweetly, as if the description was more an honor than an insult.

"You've read my file!"

"Of course." After all, it was to be expected that the warden of a prison would know every fact there was to know about its prisoners, but Strange assumed that his tricky new visitor was perfectly aware of that. Sure enough, the man in the hologram clapped his hands together, his smile instantly vanishing.

"Good. Then, let's get started." He turned away to reveal the bright yellow question mark on his back, the way he liked to when he was preparing a riddle. "How do you attempt to understand what is going on in Arkham City..." He turned back to Strange, his eyes darker than ever, "when all of the answers are..._strange_?"

_Author's Note: I'm not sure why it's in my head-canon that the Riddler was having this conversation as a hologram instead of over the phone, but that's how I decided to write it. These are not going to be long chapters, and naturally, there will only be four, but I hope you like it, anyway. I've wanted to write this for a while, even if it's been toyed with before._


	2. Chapter 2

Strange had almost been ready to retreat from his office and into the depths of the tower when the hologram flickered on at his side, smiling lightly and pretending to lean on the desk.

"Good evening, Hugo," he said warmly, tipping his hat as if his presence made him some sort of gentleman. "I believe it is time for our one-on-one." Already impatient enough from his day's work, Strange stood up, glaring down at the image of the man in the room before looking around for a way to switch it off.

"_No_," he said firmly, slamming his hand down on the chair as he searched. "It is time for you to stop this and give up! My TYGER guards will find you, and when that happens, I will perform the procedure on you myself." He smirked a little at the thought, relishing in the idea of having even one of the most tricky criminals in Gotham under his control, but was quickly interrupted once again.

"'Procedure'?" the Riddler echoed, frowning innocently before nodding and humming a bit to himself. "_Oh_, you mean what you did to all those poor fools back at the asylum." He had been aware of the sudden disappearances while he was imprisoned, but it wasn't until he escaped that he learned just what was happening in the more secure parts of the prison, on Hugo Strange's operating table. Quite fascinating, really. "...To be honest," he continued, hardly noticing the sudden shock that the psychiatrist had gone into, "I think you did them a favor."

"How do you...?" Strange began, not even sure what he was trying to ask for. He had known how..._slippery_ Nigma was, but this was beyond even his imagination. At the moment, the Riddler's hologram was straightening up again, moving to pace around the room as he fired off question after question.

"How do I know that you requested access to all the most..._forgettable _patients and proceeded to melt their brains with the help of that confused milliner?" he asked, stopping to look at the bookshelf before he moved on. "Or did you mean, how do I know that you have been providing the ex-warden with your own...'special medication,' no doubt intended to render his synapses more..._malleable _to your suggestions." He paused again, this time admiring the various awards on the wall before turning back to Strange. "Or maybe," he began again, this time smiling menacingly as he approached again, "you are currently wondering if I know about the secret panel in your closet. How it slides back to reveal what you want most." Strange flinched, but remained silent as the Riddler continued to mock him deviously. "How you sit, wearing that _suit_, crying into your hands as you question whether you are really worthy..." He ended at a whisper, fighting back laughter as his opponent's face reddened with fury.

"What do you _want_, mister Nigma?" Strange snarled, forcing himself to glare right back into the man's eyes. The criminal shrugged, adjusted his tie a little, then shrugged again as if it should have been completely obvious.

"Oh, that's easy. I want exactly what you want," he explained, earning another glare from his captor.

"And what's that?"

"Batman. Dead." The Riddler looked away, pondering silently for a moment. "...Humiliated," he added as an afterthought, smiling a little at the thought before reverting back to a sudden, determined state. "But _dead_."


	3. Chapter 3

"Knock-knock, Professor. Guess who?"

Strange groaned as the voice made its appearance for the third time that week, accompanied by the smug-as-ever hologram. He was having enough trouble with the rest of the prison as it was, without the constant heckling from the self-assured 'prince of puzzles.'

"I grow tired of these insipid games, mister Nigma," he pointed out tiredly, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his bare forehead as he spoke. "If you wish to speak to me, my guards will escort you safely to my tower." The Riddler rolled his eyes, shaking his head with an amused smirk as he leaned on his cane.

"_Please_, Hugo," he said, condescending as ever. "If you're going to set a trap, at least _pretend _to try harder than that." Strange adjusted his glasses as he looked across his desk at the hologram, and shook his head seriously.

"No traps, Edward," he replied, trying to either annoy the persistent man or convince him. He didn't really mind which ended up being the case, but the sarcastically gentle voice and first-name basis seemed to work in most cases. "I simply wish to grant you safe passage through Arkham City. I think the time has come for us to meet as equals." Unfortunately, this didn't seem to evoke a new emotion in the slightest. On the contrary, the Riddler's wry smile only became more broad, and he shook his head again, moving so that his image was almost melding into the desk in front of him.

"...You, Strange? My _equal_?" he asked coldly, narrowing his eyes as he studied his captor. "I am the man whose cunning will soon have Batman lying at my feet, bloodied and broken."

"Really?" Strange asked just as mockingly, leaning forward with faux interest as a new, insistent spark lit up the Riddler's eyes. He had turned away now, pacing around the room as he spoke, completely lost in the elaborate fantasy that had gone through his mind so many times.

"Then I will pull off his mask and look into his dull, dying eyes. In that last instant...he will know that I have finally beaten him. And _I _will know who he really is." He smiled proudly, completely certain that the moment was coming soon. He hardly noticed the look on Strange's face until he spoke again. The professor had won.

"My apologies, Edward," Strange said gently, his face showing no emotion as he looked up at him. "I see now we are nowhere near equals..."

"Finally." The Riddler rolled his eyes again, his lips curled in a defiant smile as he looked down at the man at the desk.

"You see..." and Strange paused, folding his hands over the papers he had been studying just before the Riddler had decided to join him. Sure enough, their focus was on the very topic they were discussing. "...like me, you are obsessed with the Batman." The Riddler shrugged, hardly listening until the psychiatrist dropped the true bombshell of the night. "But unlike me, you don't know who he really is. Do you?" The criminal finally turned, his eyes widening with shock and his mouth opening to gawk a little. It was the first time he had gained an expression like that in years.

"_What_...?"


	4. Chapter 4

"I know you are lying, Strange. There is no way that you could have figured it out!"

Strange smirked, watching calmly as the hologram paced around the room desperately, wringing his hands. The Riddler had been stunned ever since those words had left the professor's lips, and was searching for a reason- any reason- to believe that it was nothing more than a joke. But deep down, he knew. Hugo Strange was not the type to make jokes.

"It's some kind of trick," the Riddler went on, shaking his head firmly. "It _must _be."

"Oh, I used no tricks, no _childish _puzzles," the psychiatrist corrected him, his emphasis striking a nerve within the criminal. "I simply created a psychological profile of the man most likely to be the Batman, and then matched it against the most logical candidate. I was right...of course."

"Well, who is he?" the Riddler said irritably, striding forward to glare down at Strange. Behind his glasses, though, his eyes were filled with desperation. All the better to use against him.

"Ah, but that would spoil the _game _for you, wouldn't it?" Strange asked in turn, shuffling some papers coolly and moving to file them away, much to the criminal's despair. He practically flung himself around so that Strange couldn't avoid him, and his hat fell off, disappearing from the hologram.

"You must _tell _me! I _implore _you, Strange! I-"

"_Really, _Edward," the professor interrupted, standing up and walking past the image again. He would never admit how delighted he was to see the man finally brought down, naturally, but it was there. They could both feel it, and to Edward Nigma, it was more of an insult than any spoken words. "If _I _could figure it out," Strange continued, pausing at the other side of his desk, "it must be child's play for you." The Riddler's eyes widened, and he turned away, shielding his face slightly as he thought this through.

"But I...I...!" he stammered, looking back up at his captor. For the first time, Strange saw outright fear in his prisoner's face. He was afraid of being defeated, simply. And it was quite a victory to see him so, if the warden could say so himself.

"Interesting. Tell me, Edward...how is the Riddler like a blank dictionary?" Strange asked, heading for the door out of his office without taking his eyes off of the hologram. The Riddler in question bit his lips, his eyes narrowed and his face pained, then reached out towards something in his own hideout. The next instant, the hologram was gone, and Hugo Strange chuckled quietly to himself. He must have known the answer, already. Even so, as he headed out to the more secure parts of his tower, he announced it to the empty room.

"You're both at a loss for words."


End file.
